


The Once and Future Prince

by scioscribe



Category: Gerald's Game - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Gen, Let the Lady Pet the Dog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 08:37:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20597867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scioscribe/pseuds/scioscribe
Summary: She didn’t know why Man Bites Dog was supposed to be the real news story.  It seemed to her that men hurt dogs a hell of a lot more often than dogs hurt men.





	The Once and Future Prince

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Edonohana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/gifts).

As soon as Jessie heard the garbage cans rumbling around outside, she slid off the bed and pulled on her faded old terrycloth robe. Wrapping herself up in it was an unexpected relief. No, she didn’t mind losing the pin-up look of wearing nothing but sheer underwear and Chanel No. 5, not at all. In fact, she could have done with the robe being a good deal longer than it was. Its scraggly hem hit her about mid-thigh, and something in Gerald’s eyes for some reason made her wish it went all the way down to the floor.

“For God’s sake, Jess, it’s just a raccoon or something. What are you going to d_o_, go out there and _talk _to it?”

Maybe, Jessie thought. Just maybe she would. Anything to break up the mood in the bedroom, which hadn’t had the delicious crackle of building lightning but instead the distorted shadows and foreignness of the start of an eclipse—and with her hand on the bedroom doorknob, she stopped. Maybe, a voice in her head suggested, it would be easier, better, to just go back and go to bed. To go to

_(sleep)_

her husband and the dull-bright shine of the handcuffs, the handcuffs that put that same dull-bright shine in Gerald’s eyes, like the shape of each cuff, silvery and unyielding, was drawn around his irises. She was a married woman on an impulsive weekend getaway with a husband who still wanted—at least with the aid of some _accoutrements_—to screw the daylights out of her, and wasn’t that a lucky thing? Wasn’t it her job to go along with that? It would be easier—less silly, less strangely dangerous—than leaving the bedroom and going outside, where anything could be waiting.

She half-turned back to Gerald and was decided by the pooching-out of his lower lip, the spit-glistening poutiness of it.

_Some women do crocodile tears, _a strange voice in her head said. _He does the crocodile sulk. Sounds like a new kind of dance craze, doesn’t it? Put on your new shoes and do the crocodile sulk. He’s not sorry because he’s got the hots for you, Jessie, he’s sorry because you’re pissing all over his fun. You’re supposed to be trussed up by now. But the eclipse is starting and you’re still on your feet._

_I don’t know what that means_, Jessie thought, but only silence answered her.

She couldn’t get back in bed with Gerald looking at her like that. No, she couldn’t.

“I know it’s silly,” she said, trying on what she hoped was a disarming smile, “but I just want to make sure everything’s all right.”

She slipped down the hallway before he—or whatever voices lurked in her head—could talk her out of it. She slipped right on out of the house and walked barefoot over the dirt and gravel to check out the garbage cans.

It wasn’t a raccoon.

It was a dog—one so scrawny she could see the outline of every rib. Its fur was matted and filthy and full of burrs; its tail was tucked down between its legs as it nosed futilely at the trash cans. She saw one of the waxed sandwich wrappers blowing around on the driveway, around the Mercedes’s wheels, and she realized what must have happened: they’d dropped a bit of their little car-picnic lunch while they were carrying it to the trash cans, and the dog had had just enough of it to go crazy wanting the rest that he could smell was just out of his reach.

There was a collar around his neck, with a little name pendant swinging around, but from this distance, Jessie couldn’t make it out.

She knew she ought to just go back in and call Animal Control—they’d send some men out to pick the dog up.

But he must have caught a whiff of her perfume, because he turned to her suddenly. His brown eyes seemed to radiate a kind of wary hurt, like he knew exactly what she was thinking. It was a hurt so much _purer _than what had been in Gerald’s face. And there was a long porcupine spine sticking out of the loose flesh around his muzzle, the skin around it pink and raw-looking. Poor desperate thing.

“Easy, boy,” Jessie said softly. “Good boy. I’m not going to hurt you.” She inched forward, ignoring the blunt stabbing of the gravel against her bare feet, and flipped the lid on the trash. As the smell floated into the air, the dog whined. “It’s okay, boy.” The bag from the deli was right on top, so it was easy enough to reach in and grab it. She tugged it out and opened it, finding a whole half of a sloppy salami-and-cheese sandwich. She put the food on the ground.

The dog devoured it right away, and for some reason that gave Jessie more elemental satisfaction than anything had in a long, long while—maybe even since she’d stopped teaching.

“Good boy,” she crooned again. “Just a second.”

She dashed back into the house and went to the fridge. The only meat she could find was the fish she’d bought for their dinner.

_Oh, no, not the dinner! _the Goodwife protested. _Not when you’ll _never _find any fillet of sole up here away from the city._

She did hesitate. What the hell was she doing? The dog was a stray, sure, and a starving one, but she’d already fed it, hadn’t she? Why did she have to throw it her damn market-price fillet of sole, too? She’d bought that especially for this weekend, especially for her and Gerald. It was like she’d opened some fridge door in her mind, sending cold light pouring out. Bedroom, Gerald, Victoria’s secret underwear. Driveway, dog, terrycloth robe. The sole had to fit in one category or the other, and it seemed like it would be the deciding factor. Which road would she go down?

_If you do this, then it’s done._

_He’s just _waiting _in the bedroom for me, _she thought. _Just waiting there, in his athletic club shorts._

Jessie took the sole and went back outside. The dog was still there, licking forlornly at the greasy sandwich wrapper.

_No, someone else was wearing the athletic club shorts. A long time ago._

She didn’t know why Man Bites Dog was supposed to be the real news story. It seemed to her that men hurt dogs a hell of a lot more often than dogs hurt men.

She saw a whole lifetime’s worth of headlines stretching out before her. Gerald would leave her for this—not right away, and not explicitly, no, he’d want to seem more reasonable than that, but sooner or later, he'd do the crocodile sulk right out the door. He’d never forget that she skipped out on their latest installment of Man Ravishes Bound Woman, Husband Successfully Gets It Up for Wife. Knowing Gerald, he’d wait until he’d laid a safe little inroad with some secretary or paralegal; he wouldn’t leave without another woman to take him in. But there would be someone, she didn’t doubt that at all. Gerald had money, and he looked safe, and sometimes, for a man, that was enough. In his head, back there in the lake house, Gerald was already gone.

He would leave her and she would wash the burdocks out of the dog’s fur and she would see his name—_Prince_—and decide it suited him and Gerald would remarry and Jessie would start teaching again and she would leave the radio on for Prince during the day. And sometimes she would hug him around the shoulders and cry into his fur, into the ruff around his neck that would always smell especially doggy to her, and she would feel some primitive pulse between them, some dog-and-girl feeling from way down in her bones, something that said that they understood each other.

But right then, on that end-of-summer day, with the wind blowing her robe around her legs, Jessie just knelt down.

She gave her dog his dinner.


End file.
